With the advent of the advanced intelligent network (AIN), it has become possible to rapidly design and introduce many new enhanced telecommunications services that provide subscribers with added flexibility and convenience in the use of telephone equipment. In the advanced intelligent network, service logic programs (SLP) and database schema implementing these new services are typically designed at the service creation environment (SCE). The service creation environment is coupled to a service management system (SMS) which supports the operations, administrations, management, and provisioning (OAM&P) needs of the network.
The service management system also functions as an interface between the service creation environment and the rest of the network nodes by disseminating the service logic programs and database schema to network nodes for execution. The advanced intelligent network nodes typically include switches or service switching points (SSPs) coupled to signal transfer points (STPs), which are in turn coupled to service control points (SCPs). The service control points execute service logic programs which define the services and further store and maintain databases that have data associated with the services.
The service logic programs are generally constructed of an arrangement of service independent blocks(SIB). The service independent blocks include a number of parameters, such as, for example, global variables, counters, procedures, and templates that may vary depending on the service and the operating environment in which the service is deployed. These parameters are packaged as part of the service logic programs in the service creation environment. Typically, the parameters are packaged by a programmer manually reviewing the service independent blocks of a service logic program to identify the appropriate parameters and then copying the parameters to the service logic program. In addition to the service logic program, the packaging program manually combines stored procedures and data templates to consolidate services package. This is time consuming, expensive and prone to mistakes.